A wide range of professions: professionalism and emigration

From 1870 until the outbreak of the Great War, the inhabitants of western Friuli, especially those from the mountain and piedmont area, seasonally travelled the roads of central and eastern Europe especially as butchers, knife makers, stonecutters, stone masons, carpenters, smiths, stable boys, miners, diggers and unskilled workers.

They were greatly involved in the construction of buildings, roads, railways, tunnels, viaducts and bridges.

The professional specialties the Friuli workers took on after the second half of the 1800s depended on the groups that were formed or on the companies for which they frequently worked.

The main migratory destinations, European and trans-Oceanic, were the result of a change of consolidated allures, of strong ties between specific areas of departure and of arrival.

The foreign work sites constituted a training ground that allowed the Friuli people to learn a profession, to advance in the chain of command of the professional ladder both in Europe and overseas.

The Friuli people frequently made their migratory choice in a business manner.
Enterprise and individual initiative were combined to give life to companies that, based on the estimates of the provincial work office of Udine, were no fewer than 3,000 in 1908.